So two things about this: (1) Twitter verification was started as a way to dodge lawsuits about people registering fake Twitter accounts.[1] Verified Twitter wa

So two things about this: (1) Twitter verification was started as a way to dodge lawsuits about people registering fake Twitter accounts.[1] Verified Twitter was a way to ensure you couldn't register yourself as "realLocalPolitician" and be mistaken in a way which made Twitter liable. So turning it into a paid-for service puts Twitter in a weird spot, where they can probably be sued again about this because "verified only if you pay" is alternatively interpretable as a shakedown racket - and Twitter knowingly allowing people to misrepresent their identity to defame people makes Twitter liable again. But (2): this just isn't worth any money to anyone. There just aren't that many people for whom Twitter-verified is a worthwhile expense. Word-of-mouth verifies accounts easily, and once everyone knows @nyTimes is the New York Times official account or whatever, then its entirely unlike something like TLS where the process provides an active component in validating or securing the content or link. Optimistically this is worth like USD$30 million a year to Twitter...out of about USD$5.5 billion of year-over-year revenues. Or about 47 hours of revenue. [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/tony-la-russa-twitter-lawsuit-63155/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ton...